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The First Sunday of Advent. Lessons from the dominica, according to the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite: |
I don't think anyone but Father Knox could have expressed so clearly, in just a few sentences, what Advent is really all about. We all think we know what Advent is: a preparation for Christmas; but, as Msgr. Knox so beautifully tells us, the Church's intention in Advent is to encourage in us a reproduction of the spirit of the Old Testament prophets calling forth repentance upon the people of Israel as they awaited the coming of the Savior. The readings for the Advent season rely heavily on the prophets, particularly the prophet Isaiah; even the Gospel lessons chosen frequently present to us those occasions—and there were many—wherein our Lord quotes from the prophets; and, if we take them as a whole, we realize that what most of us think Advent is about isn't really what it's about. Recall the Collect that the priest prayed at the beginning of Mass today: “Grant to your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming, so that, gathered at his right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom.”
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7:13 AM 12/1/2019 — Those of you who have attend Holy Mass with me may have noticed that whenever I quote the Holy Scriptures, nine times out of ten I quote from the Knox Bible, released in pieces at the beginning of the last century, but finally published in a single volume for the first time in 1954. It was a labor of love done by one man, Msgr. Ronald A. Knox, an English priest and convert to Catholicism who was—and probably remains—the greatest classical language scholar who ever lived.
There's no mention of Christmas there; the Advent we await is not the coming of the Baby Jesus in the Manger; the Advent we await is the coming of Christ the King and Judge of the world. In other words, it's the not the first coming of Christ for which the season is preparing us; it's His second. In fact, up until the sixth century, when Pope Saint Gregory introduced this season, which had been observed locally in various place, to the whole Church, it was typically called the “Christmas Lent,” even though Christmas was not its focus. From the beginning, it was meant clearly as a penitential season: no Gloria is sung at the Sunday Mass, and the priest wears the color of Lent.
He responds, in today's lesson, by recalling Noah’s Ark, and how everyone but Noah and his family got washed away without any warning; then, He dazzles them with these bizarre metaphors: two people in one bed, one being taken and the other left; two women grinding corn together, one taken the other left. In other words, what their asking Him about is a theological concept; what He's telling them about is themselves. They want to know about the final judgment; what he's telling them about is the particular judgment. They want to know what's going to happen when the world comes to an end; He’s saying to them, Don't waste your time musing over when the world is going to come to an end; worry instead about what's going to happen when you come to an end, and that can happen at any time. The lesson He’s giving to us is simplicity itself: the Christian needs to live every minute of his life conscious of the fact that life is short, that it can be required of us by God at any time, and that we should always keep our souls prepared by suppressing our vices, seeking the Lord’s constant grace in confession when we sin, and by steeling ourselves against temptation by staying ever close to our Blessed Lord through frequent and worthy Holy Communion. Given the prospect of final judgment, that’s just common sense; but, you know what they say about common sense: that it isn’t always so common, especially when we are so easily distracted by the concerns of daily life.
